Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Mages of Strixhaven

An Unearthed Arcana playtest document for the upcoming Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos hardcover has been released by WotC!

"Become a student of magic in this installment of Unearthed Arcana! This playtest document presents five subclasses for Dungeons & Dragons. Each of these subclasses allows you to play a mage associated with one of the five colleges of Strixhaven, a university of magic. These subclasses are special, with each one being available to more than one class."

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It's 9 pages, and contains five subclasses, one for each the Strixhaven colleges:

• Lorehold College, dedicated to the pursuit of history by conversing with ancient spirits and understanding the whims of time itself
• Prismari College, dedicated to the visual and performing arts and bolstered with the power of the elements
• Quandrix College, dedicated to the study and manipulation of nature’s core mathematic principles
• Silverquill College, dedicated to the magic of words, whether encouraging speeches that uplift allies or piercing wit that derides foes
• Witherbloom College, dedicated to the alchemy of life and death and harnessing the devastating energies of both

 

[Marandahir]

I'd also like to see at least ONE subclass for Artificers in there. I know it can't take advantage of these 5 mage subclasses due to the granting of free high level spells, but Artificers deserve some more expansion and its a freakin' schools of magic setting!

Finally, Wizards have now retaken the leading number of official subclasses back from Clerics. Clerics have 14, Wizards now have 17! Note that there's only 4 official Artificer subclasses, and only 8 Ranger and Barbarian subclasses respectively, so there's a lot of class options balancing needing to be worked on…

 

[Weiley31]

I'd also like to see at least ONE subclass for Artificers in there. I know it can't take advantage of these 5 mage subclasses due to the granting of free high level spells, but Artificers deserve some more expansion and its a freakin' schools of magic setting!

Finally, Wizards have now retaken the leading number of official subclasses back from Clerics. Clerics have 14, Wizards now have 17! Note that there's only 4 official Artificer subclasses, and only 8 Ranger and Barbarian subclasses respectively, so there's a lot of class options balancing needing to be worked on…

Eh they are too busy hanging out in Ravinca and partying it up, what with all their guild sponsorships and trade businesses.

 

[Shardstone]

I had this same idea for my own IP! Glad to know WotC considers it a valuable idea to pursue; will be reading this one with interest.

 

[Weiley31]

So, another interesting thing with this UA: Is the Lorehold's Ancient Companion the only time a 5E Summon/Companion feature for a Subclass was capable of multiplying their PB score by 2? I don't recall seeing that in the Creation Bard's Animated Object summon NOR the Primal Beast templates for Tasha's NOR The Revised Rangers' Beast Companion.

 

[TwoSix]

Playing around with the class-subclass linkage is nicely innovative. Color me impressed.

 

[Parmandur]

The idea of "multiple" classes being compatible with a Single Subclass is a pretty intriguing concept. I mean, now you have things now where it's like "Would a Warlock or Druid be a better Witherborn" or what would supplement the actual Subclass better with the chosen base class. Could this lead to a similar idea with Martial characters at some point? In fact, this could be a strange lead in to making a Martial with magical abilities or somehow a new way to do Gishes. okay wishful thinking but still.

Also, seems like Witherborns make a decent Undead Killer since they can nix resistance to Necrotic. and in theory treat Immune as Resistant.

Also, wow, no Lineages. Granted, we have plenty of the race options for Strixhaven in various 5E formats, from official to non official(3PP).

We got the Strichaven Races in March, when they could still obfuscate it: There is no way they could have released this UA without revealing the book, but people didn't see through their Fey title.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Planejammer confirmed!?!?!?

 

[TwoSix]

Damn...warrior type Mages of Lorehold get the Bladesinger "cantrip+attack" ability, plus a 1d8 radiant added to the weapon attack. Plus this lets you be a warlock, so your cantrip can be a buffed Eldritch Blast. That's pretty awesome.

 

[Faolyn]

People have been wondering what might be changed in a hypothetical 5.5 edition. I think this might be one of those changes. I can definitely see them doing this with some martial classes as well.

 

[Parmandur]

Hmm. I like the idea of subclasses that fit multiple classes; it fills the same design niche our reintroduction of Kits does, but in a much more mechanically robust manner.

I'm interested in seeing treatments of the existing subclasses in which said subclasses are re-envisioned to fit this new paradigm.

I'd be even more interested to see subclasses that could be layered onto ANY class.

They did the last idea, universally applicable Themes, in the Next plautest, that evolved into Class specific Subclasses. This is actually an exciting evolution of that, because it allows them to target specific Classes that are appropriate to a theme, without having to reinvent a new Subclass for each Class.

This legitimately could be a preview of 6E, because remaking all the Subclasses this way is just 6E at that poimt.